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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27036151">Overworked and Overwhelmed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Totally_lucky/pseuds/ChocoluckChipz'>ChocoluckChipz (Totally_lucky)</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder'>GalahadWilder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff, Identity Reveal, college aged</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:08:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,628</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27036151</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Totally_lucky/pseuds/ChocoluckChipz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to college classes, upcoming projects, and Akuma, Marinette has been awake for two days straight. Add in a careless nap and a roommate she's been in love with since middle school, and, well, you get a mess.</p><p>She'll be fine as long as she gets coffee.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1115</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Overworked and Overwhelmed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/overworkedunderwhelmed/gifts">overworkedunderwhelmed</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A gift for OverworkedUnderwhelmed, who was feeling approximately what her name says.</p><p>Writing by Galahad, Art by Lucky.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Marinette is beyond tired. She’s been awake for 48 hours now, not even able to sneak in a nap in between deadlines and panic attacks, barely even had time to sit down. Her hands are shaking so badly she can’t even feel them anymore, and she’s reached the point where the deep chill that settled into her bones four hours ago isn’t even noticeable among all the other aches and pains she’s accumulated from the last few days, pains that even Lucky Charm can’t cure.</p><p>She wants to go home, curl up in bed, and sleep for a week. But she can’t. She’s got a design project due in two days that she’s barely started on, a sketch portfolio that she’s misplaced somewhere on campus that she needs to find before Friday, several commissions that she’s behind on, and… well, she can’t think of the rest through her brain fog, but there’s… kind of a lot. If she weren’t so bone-dead exhausted, she’d be bouncing off the walls in a blind panic right now.</p><p>The elevator door slides open, and she forces her eyelids apart just enough to slip through before they close back on her again. She stumbles down the green-carpeted hallway towards her apartment, fumbling in her purse for her keys as she goes—and accidentally poking Tikki one too many times with misplaced fingers. She’s so tired.</p><p>Detransforming halfway across Paris after a four-hour Akuma attack definitely didn’t help. Every since Mayura disappeared, the Akuma have been getting worse—more brutal, more damaging, more destructive. Each one has been a slog and a massacre, and taking huge chunks out of her schedule that she can’t afford to lose. It’s a wonder she hasn’t failed any of her classes yet.</p><p>She barely makes it to her front door without her eyelids fluttering back closed, and she stabs the keys ineffectually at the lock, scratching the tips at the brass like a drunkard in a Sherlock Holmes story. Kwami, she’s running on less than fumes.</p><p>After a full minute of trying, she gets the key into the lock and twists it open. She barely remembers to close the door behind her, and without even thinking about it, she flops face-first into the couch.</p><p>The sense of exhausted relief that floods her body is the single most pleasurable sensation she can ever remember feeling. It’s like her whole body is melting into the cushions, like the entire world has narrowed down to just her and to this couch and to the darkness in her brain, the metal clasp of the purse that’s digging into her tummy that she can’t even bring herself to move, and the overwhelming weight infesting her limbs.</p><p>She feels the familiar buzz of Tikki phasing through her body as the Kwami zips out of the purse, coming to a floating halt right in front of Marinette’s face. “Are you okay?”</p><p>“Hrmrmrmrph,” Marinette says, her lips muffled by the corduroy.</p><p>Tikki pats her charge’s forehead. “You have so much work to do, Marinette,” she says.</p><p>Marinette whimpers.</p><p>Tikki nods. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll try and take care of some of it for you.” Marinette feels something shift near her chin. “Lift?”</p><p>Marinette obligingly picks up her head, and a pillow slides underneath her chin.</p><p>“Get some sleep, Marinette,” Tikki says. “I’m going to go look for your sketchbook, okay?”</p><p>Marinette can barely muster the energy to grumble a <em> thank you </em>, and she’s not even sure whether Tikki has actually made it out of the apartment before she’s no longer aware of anything.</p>
<hr/><p>The next thing she knows, the door is quietly creaking open.</p><p>She rolls, just a little bit, just enough to pick up her head. “Nnnnalya?” she murmurs.</p><p>“Nope,” Adrien replies. “Just your roommate.” His lips press to her forehead. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”</p><p>“Mmm. Little bit.” Marinette snuggles back into the couch. “Long day.”</p><p>“I’ll bet.” Another door opens, then closes, and she feels a blanket settle across her body. “How long were you awake?”</p><p>“Wasn’t.” Blatant lie, and she’s pretty sure he knows.</p><p>“At least two days then,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll make dinner?”</p><p>“You’re the best.” She clutches the blanket tighter against her chin. These little things he does—she wishes she could stop being in love with him, just accept that he’s a friend, always will be. It’s been five years and she’s never had an inkling of anything else from him, nor has she been able to say anything. And yet he keeps doing these things that make her fall for him all over again.</p><p>In the back corner of her mind, something muddly surfaces. Something important happened with Adrien today, something she needs to tell him… what was it? What was she thinking about that…?</p><p>Oh, right. “Your… director called,” she mumbles. “You weren’t at rehearsal?”</p><p>“Family emergency,” Adrien calls from the kitchen. “Nathalie coded again.”</p><p>Marinette nods to herself. Makes sense. “She doing any better?”</p><p>She hears clicking from the kitchen as the stove catches. “Not really,” he says. “The doctors still don’t know what’s wrong with her.”</p><p>Marinette rolls onto her side and forces her eyes open, trying to look at him, to convey her sympathy. “You okay?”</p><p>Adrien shrugs, but she can see the sadness in the way he carries himself. “It’s been years,” he says. “This is just… sort of… how things are.”</p><p>They’re both quiet for a few moments while he chops up the onions.</p><p>“Did you see your dad?” she says.</p><p>Adrien laughs, but it’s a dark, pained sort of laugh. “No, thankfully,” he says. “Still no contact with him.”</p><p>“Mm. That’s good.” Marinette burrows into the couch. “Wake me up for dinner?”</p><p>“Sure,” Adrien says. “Get some rest.”</p>
<hr/><p>Her phone dings—a very specific sound that she’s trained herself to wake up to instantly, and she’s catapulted from sleep into full consciousness in a second. That’s the Ladyblog’s Akuma alert.</p><p>She wants to cry.</p><p><em> Can I not have just… a few hours? </em> she thinks. <em> Please, Hawkmoth. Let me sleeeeep. </em></p><p>“Of course, right now is when she <em> actually </em> codes,” she hears Adrien grumble from the kitchen. “I—I gotta be there—” He stops. “No, you’re—you’re right. She needs me more.” The hissing in the kitchen clicks to a stop. “I’ll… leave Marinette a note.”</p><p>He steps out of the kitchen, and his eyes widen when he sees her. “Oh,” he says. “You’re up?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she whispers. “Nathalie again?”</p><p>Adrien sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “I—look, I gotta go. I’m sorry I can’t finish dinner—”</p><p>She smiles gently. “It’s okay,” she says. “Go be with your mom.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he says with that smile that still makes her heart squeeze. “Get some sleep, okay? You need it.”</p><p>“Of course,” she lies.</p><p>“Night,” he says, grabbing his jacket and heading out the front door.</p><p>“Night,” she whispers back. She waits a few moments after the door lock clicks, then stands up and heads for the window.</p>
<hr/><p>The Akuma wasn’t a difficult one, but she’s in no shape to be leaping across rooftops. Normally, no matter how tired she is, Tikki can give her at least some sort of boost of energy, enough to keep her alert, keep her body going. The Ladybug suit doesn’t just enhance her strength and agility—over the last few years, the suit has been instrumental in keeping her going even as nights stretched into dawns with no break in between to nap. This isn’t even the longest she’s been awake—she once hit 72 hours with no breaks… but that was because of a <em> single </em> project that she’d gotten so caught up in she’d forgotten to sleep. Right now she’s only at 50, but she’s been bombarded from all sides with projects and deadlines and Akuma and just… too much. Even with Tikki’s help, she’s dead on her feet.</p><p>She staggers to the side of the street, her numb feet dragging, and flips open the compact on her yo-yo. “Please work,” she mumbles through lips which simultaneously feel too big and too small for her face.</p><p>She can’t even feel the proper triumph at realizing that yes, her yo-yo <em> does </em> have Uber on it. She opens the app and calls a car.</p><p>Probably would be smarter to do this as Marinette—less chance of her identity getting revealed, less chance blowing the secret—but she’s fairly certain that she’ll pass out the moment she detransforms. She needs Tikki just to keep her on her feet, and her parents’ bakery is further across town than her own apartment is, so there’s no dropping in on them for a nap. There’s no way she can make it back by walking, either.</p><p>She calls the Uber, then collapses to the curb and waits.</p><p>The car, a blue Renault, appears after she’s not sure how long at all—time is slipping strangely now, she’s losing track of everything. It pulls up to the curb and rolls the window down. “Um, I’m here for a… Tikki?”</p><p>Ladybug raises a sleepy hand. “That would be me.”</p><p>The Persian man leans out of the window, squinting past the thick hairs of his own mustache. “Miss Ladybug?” he says, incredulous.</p><p>“Mmhm,” Ladybug says. “Sorry about this.”</p><p>“Of course not!” the man says. “You saved my daughter from that Skittles avalanche two years ago.” He leans forward and taps, taps, then swipes something on his phone. “This ride is on me.”</p><p>Under normal circumstances, she’d have refused, insisted on paying him, even tipping him. But right now she doesn’t have the energy. “Thank you,” is all she says, pulling herself off the curb by the door handle and clambering into the car.</p>
<hr/><p>She has Behruz drop her off two blocks away from her apartment. Much as she’d like a shorter walk, there’s only so much identity-risking she can afford in one night.</p><p>She can’t do her usual yo-yo building climb—no arm-strength left for it, they’re stiff, barely holding into her sockets. Still, she can’t enter through the front door, so she climbs the fire escape—arms and legs shaking, chest heaving with every exertion. She hauls herself over the edge, onto the roof, and lies there for a moment, panting.</p><p>“<em> Okay </em>,” she says to herself. “Okay. Just—just a little farther.”</p><p>She wants to get up. She doesn’t get up.</p><p>She stares straight up, at the stars, wondering if she can’t just… sleep here for the night. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?</p><p>She takes a moment, lets herself enjoy the prospect of just… staying on the roof. Not going anywhere. But then she realizes that Tikki must be as exhausted as she is, and she can’t do that to her partner.</p><p>Slowly, she drags herself to her knees, then to her feet. It takes a full minute to gather herself up enough to make a running leap to the next roof, then she’s only one away from home.</p><p>Which window is it? It’s easy enough to just leap through the right one when she’s awake and alert, but her vision is swimming. She can’t remember which window is which. She’s—fourth floor. Is it the third window from the left, or the second?</p><p>Second. It’s—it’s definitely the second.</p><p>She unslings her yo-yo, latches it onto the roof of her building, and drops down, across the street, to the window. It’s unlatched, just how she left it, and it barely takes a moment to slide it up and clamber through.</p><p>“Tikki,” she mumbles. “Spots off.”</p><p>A flash of pink, and she stumbles into bed, barely registering that there’s already somebody else in it.</p>
<hr/><p>Marinette is used to waking up slowly. Some people pop or jolt awake, with no transition between sleep and consciousness—just, one, then the other. Marinette is not those people. Thanks to her ADHD, she needs more sleep than most, and gets less. So waking up for her is less of a moment-to-moment and more of a long, excruciating drag from asleep to not-asleep, with a hundred little stops in-between.</p><p>The following things make themselves known to her, roughly in this order: she is very comfortable, and she is covered in very nice cloth. The cloth is probably sheets. The cloth is sheets. There’s a familiar smell permeating her nose, and it’s one she likes. It is too bright—she must’ve left the shades up. Did she come in through the window last night? She came in through the window last night. That smell is Adrien’s cologne. She <em> loves </em> the smell of Adrien’s cologne. The windows in her room are on the other side of her bed—the sunlight is coming in wrong. These aren’t her sheets. Why does her bed smell like Adrien?</p><p>Her eyes snap open, and—after a second to adjust her eyes to the brightness, and her brain to being not-asleep—she realizes that, while the ceiling <em> looks </em> like hers, it <em> isn’t </em>. There’s a bend in the corner that her bedroom doesn’t have.</p><p>She rolls onto her side, and when her eyes meet the wall, she sees—instead of posters for Givenchy and Gabriel—a Niels Bohr poster, a signed photograph of Robin Williams, and a selfie of Adrien and Ladybug.</p><p>She’s in Adrien’s bedroom.</p><p>She’s in <em> Adrien’s bed. </em></p><p>
  <em> SHE’S IN ADRIEN’S BED! </em>
</p><p>She’s about to scream, but her throat collapses on the sound, turning it into an inaudible squeak instead. Before she even realizes it, she’s halfway to the ground, limbs flailing, sheets tangled. She slams—hard.</p><p>She can’t breathe.</p><p>“<em> Marinette?” </em> Adrien’s muffled voice comes from a few rooms away. She hears his feet charge across the apartment, and the door flings open, striking the opposite wall with a <em> bang </em>. “Oh my god, are you okay?”</p><p>Oh, no. Everything hurts. Everything aches. She can’t get in a breath to say anything.</p><p>He rushes to her side, scoops her up in his arms. “<em> It’s okay </em> ,” he murmurs. “ <em> You’re okay </em>.”</p><p>She already can’t breathe. Why does he keep having to make it worse? Why does he have to be so kind, so selfless? His touch burns, drives her heart into combustion. She’s going to die right here in his arms.</p><p>He lays her gently in the bed, and the moment his arms leave her, her breath comes back—though it’s like forcing the air past a wall. “—Y<b> <em>o</em> </b> u <b> <em>r</em> </b> r <b> <em>o</em> </b> o <b> <em>m</em> </b> <em> ? </em>” she rasps.</p><p>“You came into the wrong bedroom when you got home last night,” Adrien says. He leans down, presses a kiss to her forehead. “Stay. I made you breakfast in bed.”</p><p>Mm. That sounds nice. “T<b> <em>h</em> </b> -t <b> <em>h</em> </b> a <b> <em>n</em> </b>ks,” she manages, taking a moment to catch her breath and snuggling deeper into his blankets as he heads back to the kitchen. She closes her eyes, smiling as the light warms her face—</p><p>Her eyes snap open. She came into the apartment through a bedroom window.</p><p>As Ladybug.</p><p>For the second time in under a minute, Marinette’s lungs forget how breathing works. She’s frozen, barely managing the strength to jam her fist into her mouth to muffle her screams.</p><p>Oh, Kwami. He knows. He—he knows, this is a disaster, this is—maybe—maybe he didn’t see? Maybe he didn’t realize she came in through the window. Maybe he didn’t see her in the Ladybug uniform. It was—it was dark, it was late, he was asleep, right? Maybe he didn’t wake up when—okay, he definitely probably woke up when she cuddled him, but maybe he wasn’t awake when she transformed?</p><p>She hopes he wasn’t.</p><p>He shoulders open the door, carrying a tray. “I went to your parents’,” he says, laying it down on her lap. “Everything’s fresh.”</p><p>Marinette swallows. Her parents’ bakery is a fifteen minute walk from their apartment, and at this time of day—she checks, it’s still morning, technically—is at least a ten minute wait just to get to the counter. Which means that Adrien blocked out an hour <em> just to get her breakfast. </em> She’s going to faint.</p><p>“You got me coffee!” she says weakly, picking up the mug with shaky hands. “You’re a saint.” Then, she stops—sees something on the side of the tray that seems a bit… unusual.</p><p>She looks up, confused. “Cookies?” she says. “For breakfast?”</p><p>Adrien smiles. “Oh, those aren’t for you,” he says. “They’re for Tikki.”</p><p>“Oh, that makes sense,” Marinette says, picking up the pain au chocolat and tearing off a corner with her teeth—before her thoughts come to a screeching halt like a train hitting a 90-degree turn at six hundred miles per hour and plunging into a canyon. “Wait—what?”</p><p>Adrien grins at her as if he hasn’t just imploded her whole world—no, wait. As if he <em> has </em> just imploded her whole world and is <em> finding it hilarious </em>.</p><p>Her thoughts spin through her brain, unrestrained, like a tilt-a-whirl with a weak bolt. She can’t settle on a single thought, a single idea. Adrien knows. Adrien <em> knows </em> . Adrien—what does he know? <em> What does he know? </em> Can she—there’s no way she can deny—what does she—</p><p>Adrien’s hand is on hers. “Hey,” he says. “Hey. Breathe with me.”</p><p>He’s touching her. He’s touching her, he’s touching her, he’s touching her he’s touching her he’s touching her he knows who she is he knows about Tikki he’s touching her he knows he knows about Tikki he—</p><p>“How is this <em> worse? </em>” he says. He presses a palm to her cheek, setting her face on fire. “Marinette, please,” he says. “Breathe with me.”</p><p>She can’t. She can’t breathe—her lungs are collapsing, it feels like there’s a spear straight through her solar plexus—</p><p>“Adrien!” Tikki shouts. “You have to <em> stop touching her!” </em></p><p>Adrien, shocked, releases Marinette, scrambling backward, the sheets bunching under his legs. “S-sorry!” he yelps. “I’m sorry!”</p><p>Marinette collapses against the headboard, arms crossed over her stomach, shaking and letting out a tiny whimper. Breath small. Lungs small.</p><p>“Tikki?” Adrien says, looking at the Kwami with unusual familiarity. “What’s—what do I do?”</p><p>“Purr,” Tikki says.</p><p>Purr? He—what? Since when does Adrien—</p><p>“Plagg! Claws Out!”</p><p>A green flash, and her ear is pressed against vibrating leather, arms enveloping her shoulders. The purr sinks into her bones, soothing, calming, and her chest loosens, her breath finally, <em> finally </em> coming easier.</p><p>It’s only now that she finally processes what just happened. It’s not Adrien that’s holding her. It’s Chat Noir.</p><p>“My Lady?” he says, once she’s stopped shaking. “Are you—is everything—”</p><p>“I’m okay, <em> Chaton </em> ,” she whispers. “I’m—I’m okay.” She looks up at his eyes, that familiar green, superimposing the emerald of Adrien’s eyes on his and oh Kwami their expressions are the same. That is <em> Adrien’s </em>soft look. “Can you—can you just… hold me? For a minute?”</p><p>“Of course,” he says.</p><p>
  
</p>
<hr/><p>“You weren’t really at the hospital,” Marinette says, twisting the spoon against the table.</p><p>“No,” Adrien says, mixing another packet of sugar into Marinette’s fourth cup of coffee. “Apparently I was with you.” He slides the mug over. “Your coffee, My Lady.”</p><p>“<em> Coffee </em> ,” Marinette gasps in delight. She snatches it up and takes a long, slow sip, her eyes drifting closed. “You are my <em> favorite </em> partner.”</p><p>Adrien smirks. “So it wasn’t the puns or the self-sacrifice or the unconditional emotional support—”</p><p>“Nope,” Marinette says, placing the mug back on the table. “You are He Who Provides the Coffee.” Wait, he—this is both Adrien and Chat Noir, he might take that seriously. “You—you know I don’t mean that, right? You’re—I mean, you’re—you’re the most important person in the world to me.”</p><p>Adrien’s face softens. “You’ve made that clear for years, Bugaboo. You don’t need to worry about me feeling abandoned now.”</p><p>“Still good that you said it,” Plagg says, crawling across the center of the kitchen table and poking Tikki’s cheek. “Sometimes he needs the reminder.”</p><p>Tikki rolls over to face away from Plagg. “Hibernating,” she grumbles.</p><p>“It’s <em> April.” </em>Plagg leans over her and pokes her cheek again.</p><p>Tikki’s body fizzes pink, and, without even sitting up, she drifts through the table surface, leaving behind a very exasperated Plagg.</p><p>Marinette knows the feeling. If she could sink into the table and not come up for a week, she absolutely would. One night of good sleep does not make up for a month’s worth of sleep debt.</p><p>She takes a moment to enjoy her coffee, letting the sweetbitter taste wash over her tongue as the lightning makes its way through her still sluggish bloodstream. She’s already on her fourth, but after three straight years of caffeine abuse her body is so adjusted to caffeine that she once had to drink straight caffeine extract just to feel awake enough to get her assignments done.</p><p>“I always wondered why you were always so tired,” Adrien says. When she looks up at him, she see that his eyes are downcast—he looks <em> ashamed </em>, of all things. “I thought you were sleeping more than you were.” He glances up, meets her eyes with an awkward grimace. “I feel like an idiot for not noticing.”</p><p>Marinette carefully places her mug on the table. “To be fair, I’ve gotten very good at hiding it.”</p><p>Adrien shakes his head. “Still,” he says. “I feel like I let you down.” His eyes are sad, and she can already see the classic Agreste Self-Blame Spiral starting in his head. “I haven’t been taking care of you.”</p><p>“Haven’t been—” Marinette splutters. Okay, forget coffee—<em> indignance </em> is the good stuff, this is the most energized she’s felt all week. “Adrien, you spend an hour a day at the hospital with Nathalie, three hours in rehearsal, however many in lab, and you <em> still </em> find time to cook my food, tuck me into bed, and <em> literally take bullets for me. </em> ” She slams her palm on the table with the last word, glaring at him. “What more could you <em> possibly be doing? </em>”</p><p>Adrien raises a finger, opens his mouth, ready to rebut—and stops. “I…” he begins, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “I don’t… I don’t even know.”</p><p>“Adrien—”</p><p>“But does it matter?” Adrien says. “You’re still not sleeping, you’re still overworked, you’re—you took an <em> Uber </em> home last night. <em> As Ladybug. </em>”</p><p>Marinette swallows. “You… saw that, huh.”</p><p>Adrien raises his eyebrows and nods with a pursed lip. “Hit top post on the Ladyblog,” he says. “I check it nearly daily.”</p><p>Marinette grits her teeth. “Yikes,” she says, staring into her coffee. “I—look, it made sense at the time?”</p><p>Adrien leans back in his chair. “Yeah, it did. But I shouldn’t have put you in that position to begin with.”</p><p>Marinette’s eyes narrow. “What on <em> earth </em> makes you think it’s your fault?”</p><p>“I—Mari, Bug,” Adrien chokes. “Taking—taking care of you is my <em> job </em>.”</p><p>“Kid,” Plagg interrupts from his place curled up in the center of the kitchen table. “You’re allowed to have your own life.”</p><p>Marinette uncrosses her right arm, pointing downward at the Kwami. “Listen to the tiny cat, Adrien,” she says.</p><p>Adrien lays his head down on the table. “I feel so guilty,” he murmurs.</p><p>Marinette tries to reach her hand across the table, to lay it on his—it’s a little difficult, since his hand is under his chin. “Chaton,” she says.</p><p>His head perks at the nickname.</p><p>“You already do so much for me,” Marinette says, her voice soft. “I don’t know how to tell you how much I appreciate you.” Her voice breaks a little, and she realizes that she’s tearing up. “H-how… how much I—I appreciate both of you.”</p><p>Adrien lifts his head just a little. “My Lady?” he whispers.</p><p>“You do <em> so much </em> for me,” she says. “And—and, and you’re the only person who <em> never </em> asks anything of me.” Oh, good, she’s crying now. “You—you give <em> so much </em> , Adrien, and—and you’re always there for me, and I just—” Tears are streaming down her face and she can’t quite get the words out the way she wants them. She’s crying too easily; probably still exhausted. And she’s making a fool of herself in front of the boy she loves—in front of her <em> partner. </em></p><p>“Hey,” Adrien says, standing up and coming around the table. He crouches, hugging her shoulders. “It’s okay, Mari. It’s okay.”</p><p>“It’s <em> not </em>,” she sobs. “I just—I…” She leans the back of her head onto his shoulder, her eyes closed, trying not to get his shirt wet. “I’ve—I’ve spent f-four years trying to—trying to get over you, and, and, and, then you just—”</p><p>“Get <em> over </em> me?” Adrien asks, hushed, amazed.</p><p>“—then you do <em> this </em>, and, and, and I fall for you all over again, and I just—”</p><p>Adrien’s hand is on hers, across her chest. “My Lady,” he whispers, nuzzling his nose into her hair, “are you in love with me?”</p><p>Oh. Oh no, oh no, she’s—she’s said too much. Her whole body crashes in a cascade of panic, waterfalls of everything collapsing inside her, and it’s too much for her to handle.</p><p>“<em> Yes!” </em> she wails, turning around, flinging her arms around his broad shoulders, and burying her sobbing face into his chest.</p><p>He pats her back awkwardly. “I—okay,” he says. “I don’t—what do it—?”</p><p>Plagg uncurls and stretches his kitty limbs. “If you don’t tell her now, you’re never gonna,” he says.</p><p>“I tell her all the—”</p><p>“<em> Sincere. </em>”</p><p>Adrien turns to Marinette. “I—oh.” He catches her chin with the crook of his palm. “You—you never believed me. Did you.”</p><p>She blinks tears out of her eyes. “Believed?” she says.</p><p>And suddenly she can’t breathe, because his lips are all over hers, the taste of him filling her mouth, and she feels like her entire body launches straight out of her chair and through the ceiling. She’s stunned, her brain on molasses, before she realizes—she’s kissing him. She’s kissing her roommate. She’s kissing Adrien.</p><p>She’s kissing her <em> partner </em>. And he loves her too.</p><p>She wants to sink into it, to guzzle him up, devour him, drink in his breath like it’s her fifth coffee of the day, but it’s too much. The sensations, the emotions, they’re all too overwhelming, and everything in her is desperate not to flail, not to flap her arms in distress and delight and accidentally smack Adrien in the face. She does the only thing she can: she pulls away.</p><p>There’s a small <em> pop </em> as their lips separate, and Marinette is left desperate, panting, staring into Adrien’s so-green eyes. <em> Disappointed </em> so-green eyes.</p><p>“Did I—do it wrong?” he says. “Was I—was that—”</p><p>She squeezes her eyes shut and swallows. “Not you,” she says. “You’re fine. It’s—I’m—”</p><p>“Oh!” Adrien says. “You’re overwhelmed.”</p><p>She nods, without opening her eyes. “Kiss... later?” she says.</p><p>“Of course,” Adrien says, and she can hear the relief in his voice. He didn’t ruin anything—and, thank Kwami, neither did she. “Do you want to go back to your own bed?”</p><p>She nods again, tighter this time. “Please,” she says.</p><p>He takes her hand, carefully lifting her out of her seat. “Do you think you can sleep with so much caffeine in your system?”</p><p>She shakes her head. “Need to work anyway.”</p><p>“I figured.” Adrien gently tugs on her hand, guiding her through the kitchen door. “But you’re going to bed on time tonight. Clear?”</p><p>“But what if—”</p><p>“What if nothing,” Adrien interrupts. “If there’s an Akuma, I will take the earrings from your ears and go out <em> by myself </em> if I have to.”</p><p>She blinks, surprised, then snuggles in against his arm. “You’re the best partner ever,” she mumbles.</p><p>Adrien smiles, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I do try.”</p>
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